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Member Spotlight: Matteo Becchi

Member Spotlight: Matteo Becchi

I have been an OD Network member for about three years. I joined while I was enrolled in American University’s (AU) MSOD program. My top two OD Network experiences thus far have been attending the OD Network/IODA World Summit last year in Portland, Oregon (my first OD Network conference ever), and working with the talented members of the planning team of OD Network Conference in Atlanta, Georgia this year.

The favorite moment of my career thus far (if seven days can qualify as a moment) has been my most recent visual OD consulting gig this past spring that brought me to a beautiful Caribbean nation for one weeks’ worth of work. That experience allowed me to leverage several professional competency areas that I have been developing the past few years. In addition to being a co-facilitator with two other talented OD professionals, I had the chance to collaborate with those OD professionals and the client system in various capacities, including data gathering (i.e., interviews), OD intervention design and planning via a two-day workshop, as well as graphic recording, co-facilitation, and graphic facilitation of the intervention (i.e., delivery of the two-day workshop). Wow—what a rich experience! This experience proved to me that this is the kind of work I want to be doing full time going forward. I have (finally) found my life’s work.

Note: Although there was zero downtime to truly enjoy this tropical paradise, there was time to capture and enjoy one or two Kodak Moments ™ .

As an internal, dependent, FT employee at AU, sometimes I have the opportunity to also serve as a sort of internal OD Consultant, in addition to my core job role responsibilities. Two years ago, as I was concluding my AU MSOD journey, I had the chance to design, pitch, plan, coordinate and deliver a Summer All-Hands Meeting for my IT department of 115 people. So, in addition to a full professional workload and a full academic workload, I was also able to put together and deliver an all-hands meeting filled with fun, teamwork, health and wellness, as well as a World Café focused on the department’s recently published four-year strategic roadmap. The event was a success. In fact, the design for this all-hands meeting continues to live on in this organization today—now approaching its third annual iteration. Funny thing was, I didn’t even notice the extra work load this project carried with it. Another confirmation that this is the kind of work I need to be doing more of.

OD’s versatility: how it can be applied to just about any scenario, any field, any situation, any conversation; and how it can support a successful outcome, or some positive impact or change. Blows my mind every time.

The people of OD: The amazingly talented and ever-expanding, and evolving, pool of scholar practitioners in this field. As one example, back at the very beginning of my MSOD journey, only two months into the program, my cohort had been invited to attend Charlie and Edie Seashore’s memorial up near Baltimore, Maryland. After much deliberation and discussion within my cohort (we weren’t sure if it was quite right for us to be there, being brand new to the field, and none of us having had a chance to meet either Edie or Charlie), we agreed to go, albeit with much anxiety and concern we were doing the right thing. Sure enough, not before long, I found myself stuffed into a room filled with hundreds of OD professionals, scholars, practitioners, friends and family from all around the world. I was standing shoulder to shoulder with people I had never met before, and we were singing, dancing, crying, and, of course, lots and lots of hugging, all in recognition and celebration of Edie and Charlie, who they were and what they had accomplished. In some way, each of these people’s lives had been touched by Edie and Charlie. I realized, in that moment, that I too had become part of the circle. Amazing.